The Kingdom of Back(8)

Woferl made an impressed sound at that. “It must be a special place.”

“Well, a special forest needs a guardian, doesn’t it?”

He nodded without hesitation. “Of course it does.”

A memory glimmered in my mind of an outfit stitched together from black bark and silver leaves. A smile of white teeth. “Because you have said so,” I replied formally, “the forest has a guardian now.”

Woferl leaned eagerly toward me. “Who is it?”

“Well, who do you think it is?”

“An imp?” He was picturing the ones from old German tales, wicked pranksters who could shift into the shape of a rabbit or snatch children from their cradles.

“Surely not just any imp, Woferl?” I insisted. “They aren’t clever enough on their own to guard an entire forest. They need someone to help them with their plans.”

Woferl considered this with a serious face. “A faery princeling, then, of the forest.”

A princeling. The memory in my mind sharpened further. A pair of glowing blue eyes, twigs tangled in hair. A voice too beautiful for this world. I yearned toward the thought. “A princeling,” I agreed. “Someone unafraid to play pranks on trespassers to drive them away. Someone clever and lovely enough to lure in whomever he wants, someone capable of conducting the forest’s symphony. Someone”—I thought for a moment, then winked at my brother—“wild.”

A crash sounded out from the other side of the wall.

I bolted upright in bed. Woferl’s eyes turned wide, illuminated by an edge of moonlight slipping into our room. The living room had fallen silent again, but we did not dare move. I tried to keep my breathing even, but I could feel Woferl trembling at my side, and his fright stirred my own. Where was Mama’s voice or Papa’s steps, someone who should check on the noise? We heard nothing. I glanced toward our closed bedroom door. Even though I heard no footsteps, I did see a faint light wander back and forth under the door.

I tucked my feet into my nightgown. It suddenly seemed very cold.

After a long silence, I finally loosened my knot of legs and swung them over the side of the bed. Perhaps Mama or Papa had tripped over something and needed help. I couldn’t hear their voices, though.

Woferl stared at me. “Are you going out there?” he whispered.

I turned my eyes back toward our bedroom entrance. Lights still reflected from its bottom slit, hovering. It did not look like candlelight or the light of a fireplace or sunlight. I motioned for Woferl to stay in bed, then crept over and peered out into the living room.

There, on the other side of our door, drifted a world of fireflies.

It did not occur to me that I might be dreaming. The air seemed too alive. The fireflies were everywhere, too bright to be an illusion.

I’d never seen so many, certainly none in the winter. They clustered the most brightly near the music room. One flew so close to my face that I stepped back and blinked, afraid it would land on me. But perhaps they were not fireflies at all—for in that moment, I glimpsed a tiny figure behind the light and caught sight of slender arms, legs as fine and delicate as flower stems. It made a bell-like sound before darting away.

I wandered out of our room, awed into silence. Moonlight spilled through the windows to paint patterns on the floor. Outside, I could see the dark outlines of the Getreidegasse’s buildings asleep under the stars. The tiny creatures’ glow gave our flat a strange color, somewhere between this world and another. I wanted to say it looked yellow, or blue, but I could not. It was like describing the color of glass.

The shadows stirred near the music room’s door. I turned toward it. My feet moved forward on their own, and my brother followed close behind. The dots of light drifted aside for us, letting us carve a dark blue trail through their golden mist.

Someone was humming near our clavier. When I saw him, I gasped and lifted a hand to point in his direction.

The boy swiveled to face us. He flashed me a smile that revealed pearl-white canines.

He was taller than I, his frame as young and willowy as a dancer at the ballet. His skin glinted pale in the moonlight, and his fingers were long and lithe, his nails sharp. Sapphire hair tumbled shining down his back, and among the strands hung twisted trails of black ivy, shimmers of moss and forest, night and jewels. His eyes were large, luminous, and wondrously blue. They glowed in the darkness and lit up his lashes. His lips were full and amused. When I looked closer, I noticed the catlike slant of his pupils. His cheekbones were high and elegant in his youthful face, and he looked so unbearably beautiful that I blushed at the sight of him.

Of all my memories, this first meeting remains the sharpest.

“Who are you?” I asked.

Beside me, Woferl’s eyes were round with awe. “Are you the guardian from the forest?” he added.

The boy—the creature—tilted his head at me. “You don’t know?” he replied. There was a wildness about his voice, like wind that made the leaves dance, and I recognized it immediately as the sound I’d yearned toward in my dream. This is who whispered to me at the clavier, the same boy I’d seen walking beside the ocean in my dream.

It was him, and he was here. The breath in my chest tightened in fear and excitement.

Was he an imp, as Woferl had first suggested? I’d seen black-and-white ink drawings of those gnarled little creatures in collections of faery tales, legends, and myths, but this beautiful boy bore hardly any resemblance to them. It was as if he were the original mold and the drawings merely his crooked shadows.